She did not offer to speak, and, after one hasty glance at her face, Hildebrand turned away, and stepped back to the pantler.
“Be vigilant!” he said to that person. “She will want a drink anon, and thou must give her something cool. I must to bed, or sink.”
With these words, he turned to the adjacent berth; and without taking off his clothes, which were perfectly dry and warm, threw himself on the bed. Thus bestowed, he tried to meditate, and to call up to his eye, in melancholy array, the several causes for sorrow and dejection which his situation embraced. But, however earnestly he sought to arouse himself, his energies were so utterly prostrated, and his frame so wearied, that his endeavours at meditation were unsuccessful, and he had hardly laid fairly down, when he was overtaken by sleep.
It was daylight before he awoke. Springing to the floor, he found that, after having been awake the whole night, Inez had at last fallen into a slumber.
As he proceeded to achieve his toilet, he called to mind, with a thrill of remorse, all that Inez had disclosed to him, and how far he was responsible for the wretchedness of her position. What a bitter retribution had one slight deviation from rectitude brought upon him! After his escapes in the field, his dangers on the seas, and his extraordinary vicissitudes as an adventurer, his life was to be crossed by an error, just as it was opening on a land of promise. Nor was it solely on this personal ground that he looked on that error with remorse. His heart, though it had committed a momentary excess, was stored with manly and noble feelings, and, while it reproached him for his own conduct, inspired him with the liveliest commiseration for Inez. He thought of her beauty, her innocence, and her lofty spirit; but above all, as referring more nearly to himself, he thought of the deep and devoted love, which she had so unequivocally manifested for him.
The heart, in matters concerning the affections, but especially in a matter of love, is a dangerous thing to trifle with, and should always be sounded with the nicest care. When our sympathies are astir, we are liable to contract impressions, under a sort of surprise, that will deceive our own selves, and, though they are only superficial influences, sway us with the force of passions. If we searched our hearts deeply, we would find, on a closer view, that those impressions are not created so much by external agents, as by innate feelings; and, further, that we understand their nature very imperfectly, and entirely mistake their tendency. What we conceive, for instance, to be love, may really be no more than an elevated sympathy, though our inclination to mistake it may give it the colouring and force of love, and the strength of passion. If, in the outset, indeed, we apply to it the tests which love should sustain--if we propose to it the sacrifices that love would offer, or the mortifications that love would brave--the delusion will vanish; but, in the ecstacy of the moment, this course rarely occurs to us, and we cling to the delusion till it appears real, and renders us as giddy as absolute intoxication.